When Dersel Bonai walked the stage to receive his Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa on May 16, he carried the pride of his ancestors. A Pacific Islander from West Papua, Bonai became the first person in his native tribe’s family lineage to earn a master’s degree.
“Being the first person in my Bonai family lineage within my tribe to earn a master’s degree means this achievement is not only for myself, but also for my ancestors, family, community, and future generations of my tribe,” Bonai said. “It reminds me that education can create new opportunities while still staying connected to my culture and identity.”
A humorous detour
Bonai’s journey to 糖心视频 Mānoa featured a humorous detour. He originally earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Rhode Island, choosing the school partly because its name suggested an island environment similar to his home. Instead, he discovered freezing winters and a culture vastly different from West Papua. Seeking an environment closer to his Pacific Island heritage, Bonai, who was also active with and lived at the East-West Center, joined 糖心视频 Mānoa’s School of Architecture in 2024. Hawaiʻi provided the familiar plants, landscape elements, and cultural traditions he had been missing.
Designing for healing
At 糖心视频 Mānoa, Bonai focused on the intersections between land, culture, and community. His capstone project, “Designing for Healing—Cultural Revival, Ecological Restoration and Human Well-Being in West Papuan and Hawaiian Landscapes,” proposed a new design language rooted in collective well-being. Applying this to sites on Oʻahu and his home island of Yapen, West Papua, Bonai argued that healing landscapes are spaces to reconnect with traditions, land and people.
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“To me, healing means rebuilding relationships between people, land, culture and traditional knowledge,” Bonai said. “Healing can happen through simple everyday experiences, such as spending time outdoors, practicing traditions like hula in Hawaiʻi or the yospan in West Papua, working in the loʻi, or reconnecting with cultural knowledge or even just listening to the stories of our ancestral lands.”
Community connection
Since January 2025, Bonai served as a graduate student project assistant on Professor Judith Stilgenbauer’s design research team, contributing to the “Olowalu: The Road to Resilience” project with The Nature Conservancy. Engaging with the West Maui community reinforced his belief that community well-being is deeply tied to environmental health.
“Working with the community in West Maui helped me see that land is more than a physical place. It carries stories, identity, traditions, and memories,” Bonai said.
Looking ahead, Bonai plans to bring his Indigenous knowledge into his future work as a landscape architect, hoping to empower Indigenous communities and protect ecological systems across the Pacific and around the world.